ACS, the professional association for Australia’s ICT sector has launched Artificial Intelligence: A Starter Guide to the Future of Business, encouraging all Aussie businesses to embrace the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

The ACS launched the publication at their innovation hub at Barangaroo, Sydney. ACS President Yohan Ramasundara, said the guide provides an easy to understand introduction to AI.

“Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionise the way we do business, optimising business processes and creating entirely new revenue streams,” said Ramasundara.

Ramasundara said it is vital for Australia’s businesses to adopt AI if they want to remain competitive in an increasingly global marketplace.

“Many business leaders think AI may be too hard, and don’t consider it as a solution to the issues they face today. If Australia is to remain a competitive leader in technology, we must both inspire the current and future entrepreneurs, and encourage adoption and experimentation with existing AI solutions. Our message today to Australian business is to get in now, or risk missing out on the largest business opportunity since the internet.”

A number of the Australian tech industries luminaries were on hand to launch the guide including CEOs and founders from Sortal, Gameface and Hyper Anna demonstrating their capabilities.

Majella Edwards, Sortal CEO said she welcomed the ACS initiative to educate Australians on the existing benefits of AI.

“When we speak with enterprises about artificial intelligence, too often we find that business leaders focus on what the technology will achieve in the future. While there is an enormous amount of potential as the field develops, we can already do incredible things with AI in the here and now – and by investing in AI now, businesses can set themselves up to thrive rather than play catch up later on.”

Increasingly Australia’s most talented developers are leaving Australia to pursue careers overseas and Ramasundara suggested more must be done to stop the brain drain.

“The government has committed to invest $29.9 million over four years to pump up Australia’s AI and machine learning capabilities in fields such as cybersecurity, health and energy. This is a very small step in the right direction and if we are genuinely committed to harnessing the power of AI a more demonstrably significant investment will be required.

“AI experts in the US and China, for example, can demand salaries as high as $US300,000 ($400,000). We also know there is a gap when it comes to the adoption of AI solutions in the Australian enterprise. Our report today aims to bring knowledge of what is possible to business decision makers.”

Unleash Live has raised $4.75 million in funding from investors including Amaysim cofounders Peter O’Connell and Rolf Hansen, Smarter Capital, and New York firm Revel Partners.

Unleash Live’s platform ingests live video and imagery from the likes of drones, internet protocol [IP] cameras, and other IoT devices, and applies AI analytics in real time, allowing customers in industries such as mining, construction, and transport to make better decisions about their facilities or assets.

Meanwhile Soapbox.ai, a startup whose platform looks to automate various aspects of the service management or support process, raised $500,000 in seed funding from high net worth individuals.

Soapbox.ai’s system works to learn how human agents work, with its bot Sofi then automating the ‘mundane’ tasks – the resetting of passwords, for example.